Oh gees, I WONDER who that might be.
PS: If its who I think it is, I wouldn’t be surprised at all, but I’ve seen worse players start reasonably regularly over the last 5 years or so.
It looks pretty clear that with the departure of the Lowys its normal service being resumed on football administration standards. Like them or not, the Lowys were the benign dictatorship that prevented this sort of nonsense of political agendas and vendettas being played out under the guise of administration. If there were issues, why no attempt to fix them? If they wanted a female coach why not have Staj see out his contract then change ? Because things might have turned out well , setting back the female coach agenda. So best outcomes takes back seat to agendas like we saw time and again in the old days. The new board could not even wait three months to drag us back. For all its good intentions with governance reform I fear FIFA has unwittingly taken us backwards, the current conspirators - conveniently named for us by Elizabeth Reid- have betrayed the vast majority of players who were planning a WC , also the minority who in good faith raised issues in the hope they would be negotiated.
1 Like
Answer would appear to be found here
SFCU sleuth squad comes up with the answers again 
Well we don’t have to worry about Korea anymore. Coupled with Japan being quite poor this tournament we aren’t the only big gun that hasn’t fired.
And for all of our bad luck with injuries, what a dream run it could potentially be (from the perspective of avoiding the favorites) IF we get past UAE next
“That’s not it, but I still won’t tell you what it is”
Way to miss the whole cunting point Nikou.
Every day they shoot themselves in the foot again.
Wasn’t Tracey Holmes one of the reporters briefed or feed details of this whole affair by the FFA ahead of the actual sacking taking place? At any rate Nikou sheds zero extra light on any of the issues that have been raised resulting in a pointless piece of media, much like Gallop’s second press conference. What a bunch of muppets.
"But at the end of the day we had a very detailed board discussion on the evidence before us.
What were those details and evidence?
Mr Nikou was asked whether the board had given in to pressure from an “anti-Stajcic” lobby group of former players and others with a grudge.
“No, certainly not,” he said.“I’ve heard it, of course, but it’s simply untrue.
> "Unfortunately those sorts of rumours and innuendo are much more interesting than the plain, boring facts of the situation … we dealt with the issues as they were presented to us without any of those motives people have tried to put to us.”
Well what are those fucking facts?!!
Mr Nikou was asked whether Stajcic had been offered an adequate opportunity to address the problems and potentially avoid the drastic action of terminating his employment.
“I think you’ll appreciate that my hands are tied to a certain extent about what I can and can’t say about what’s occurred,” he said.
I don’t appreciate that that’s the case. Why is that the case? Why are your hands tied? Is there a further investigation by authorities?
There has even been a growing number of calls for football chief executive David Gallop to be sacked by those unhappy that the mandate of transparency promised by the new FFA board, elected in November, has not been delivered.
“It is still the mandate,” Mr Nikou said.
“But unfortunately there are certain no-go zones that mean we can’t delve into much greater detail than we have already.”
What’s a no go zone and why do they exist? Do you know what the word mandate means?
I agree with most of the criticism that’s been directed the FFA’s way, but I also remember that we had a very similar round of WTFing and public anger when Dirk Melton was suddenly sacked by Sydney FC. Over the ensuing months that criticism inevitably died down, some details of the complaints slowly came out / were leaked to people of influence, and these days everyone pretty much agrees that the club made the right decision, even though most of us don’t know any of the facts.
Not saying that’s going to be the case here, just that it’s not impossible.
I also love how Nikou claims there’s been heaps of applicants for the role. How many of those are going to do a better job than Stajcic? I would love to know.
Something of a surprise there, applicants for a job coaching one of the worlds top ranked teams. Gee.
I’m not denying for a second there’s been a heap of applicants but that fact really means fuck all. If you’re going to get rid of a coach, you need to be damn well sure they’re going to do a better job than the previous one. I don’t think the very best coaches in the game are even going to go near the role. Given the scant level of transparency shown by FFA for Stajcic’s dismissal, prospective coaches can only go by Stajcic’s record and the timing of his sacking - five months from a World Cup. FFA have almost certainly boxed themselves into a corner.
Yeah, it seems an odd thing for a National federation to be celebrating, “Yay we have applicants”.
Matilda’s were expected to do well at this World Cup. Expectations here at home were that they could win it. I still hope they do for the girls sake, they’ve put a lot of work in over the last couple of years. But anything less than a semi finals spot will be a fail for the new coach. Not getting out of the group will see the FFA with some large questions to answer.
I would say that the reason Nikou’s hands are tied is because there is the potential of, or already commenced, legal action around unfair dismissal. According to Fair Work:
Employees have to apply to the Commission within 21 days of the dismissal taking effect. The 21 day period starts the day after the dismissal
Until that passes he can’t really disclose the details publicly, can he?
Not sure if that will apply, FFA have been at pains to state Staj is being paid out within the provisions of his contract to do so. If he takes legal action it’s more likely to be in respect of defamation and the damage to his future earning capacity.
In that case we will be waiting even longer for this to be settled and both sides going public if the length of recent defamation cases is any guide to go on.
I’m not surprised there’s heaps of applicants, you get to coach a pot 1 team at a world cup without the bother of having to qualify. For a foreign coach its a win win. Succeed and you are a legend, fail and you can blame the shambolic FFA, with your reputation intact. For a local its a once in a lifetime chance to roll the dice. Agree that the test for FFA is whether the appointment is better than Staj. Given Stajs record, and the Byzantine intrigues of coaching the Matildas, very difficult to see the new woman in the job will be a better option. But I am sure Gallop and the FFA will be happy to run the argument its a step up regardless of reality, they are the form team in that game.
